Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 27, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 2: The Flood

Transcript

January 27, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 2: The Flood · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to Chronological This Week.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be looking at Noah and the flood, and please join me as as we pray to start.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you for this time.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: We pray that we would just see you more clearly as a result of this story about Noah.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that we would see your goodness and your faithfulness.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, bless us during this time.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: As we look at Noah this week, it's going to help us to review just a few things that we saw from last week from the creation.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: We saw some faith-building attributes about God, and those are going to be built on again this week.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, we saw that God provides.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: He provides for man's need before he even knows he has the need.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is good.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 119, 68 says, You are good and what you do is good.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then we see that God promises salvation and redemption.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Eve took the fruit and she influenced Adam to eat the fruit as well.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we see God move toward Adam and Eve with a promise of the seed that is found in Genesis 3.15, and that seed will be Jesus Christ.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is redemptive.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: God protects man by creating a system to support all of life.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is powerful.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: God prolongs judgment.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just because God works slowly doesn't mean he isn't working when it comes to judgment.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just because God is silent does not mean he is inactive.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we will see that continued through all of this study.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is patient and he is long-suffering.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: God proves, he proves that he is relational by going after Adam and Eve.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: When they sinned, he wanted to restore them and to be brought into that relationship again.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: He proves he is relational by going after them, and he has proved in our lives that he's relational by coming after us.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God is faithful.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those were just a few of the many things that we've seen, and again, we will build on that this week.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to the following generations after the fall?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve's son Abel offers a sacrifice that God accepts, but Cain becomes angry and doesn't want to come to God God's way.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Cain does not listen to God.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't believe that God is good.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: He has a faulty view of God.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually he takes the life of his brother Abel.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the descendants of Cain, you see the continuation of sin and the beginning of a secular world view, which continues through his descendants.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: But God in his faithfulness and mercy gives Adam and Eve another son, Seth.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, God has granted me another child in place of Abel since Cain killed him.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Through Seth's lineage, we eventually get to Noah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what was the earth like just ten generations after Adam and Eve?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we hear.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 6, 11 and 12.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the earth, the people on earth, had corrupted their ways.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: God wanted the earth to be filled with good and filled with image bearers.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: But because of sin, it became filled with what?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Corruption and violence.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most of what Noah knew about God came from what takes place in Genesis chapters 1 through 5.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: The story of creation, the fall, and the promises of redemption found in Genesis 3.15.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Seth, Adam and Eve's son, also understood that you come to God God's way.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Seth handed down a godly heritage to his descendants.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch, a descendant of Seth, led such a good godly life that God took him straight to heaven.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 5, 20 21 and 24.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Altogether Enoch lived a total of 365 years.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked faithfully with God.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then he was no more because God took him away.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The knowledge Enoch had that enabled him to walk such a godly life came from the knowledge that he gained in Genesis chapters 1 through 5.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The story of creation, the fall, and the promises of redemption.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have Methuselah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: He lived to be 969 years, the oldest man recorded in the Bible.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he was the grandfather of Noah.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: The knowledge Noah had about God had been passed down from generation to generation to generation.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Noah knew and embraced that you come to God God's way, and that God's way is through the shedding of the blood of the innocent on behalf of the guilty.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: The accounts of creation, the fall, and the promises of redemption were what Noah had that enabled him to build his life of faith on.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see that the truths that we saw last week in the creation are foundational and it gave enough knowledge of God to fuel some mighty men of God.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are some important things that we learned about sin from the fall last week, too.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: We learned that it is easy to listen to Satan and to doubt God, that man often ignores God's warnings, and that disobedience severely costs everyone.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we see those same things today in our society.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let me take just a really short break here to explain just minuscule the fall of Satan.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: We will look at this more in detail this summer when we get to the book of Job.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's some really important things that the book of Job shows us about Satan.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Satan started out as Lucifer and was probably in the same class as Michael and Gabriel.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: They very well could have been a trinity of guardian cherubs.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, we don't know when, Lucifer rebelled against God and he wanted the glory that was God's alone.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted what God had and has.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We know his rebellion was before Adam and Eve were in the garden because he shows up there in the garden, but scripture doesn't tell us when it happened, just that it did.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was expelled from heaven to the earth where he was given some authority and power by God.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Satan's power and authority are limited.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're limited power, limited authority.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know why God gave him some power and authority.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture doesn't tell us why.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: A third of heaven's angels followed Lucifer in his rebellion, and those fallen angels now serve Lucifer or Satan as demons.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that there were a third of them that fell from heaven and chose to follow Satan gives credence to the fact that it could have been a trinity of angels with Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Seven Old Testament books and every New Testament writer make reference to Satan.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the two passages that tell about Satan's rebellion are Ezekiel 28, 11 through 19, and Isaiah 14, 12 through 15.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: We also get a ton of insight from the book of Revelation as well.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: We will see these passages when we get to the book of Job.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: There are some things that God allows us to know because he records it in his word.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: There are some things that we don't and can't know about Satan.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The things that we can know, we should know.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that we can't know, we need to just trust God on and with.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So think about that.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Noah had firsthand accounts of the fall and the second generation of mankind.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty incredible.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: There were only 1,656 years from Adam to the flood.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in that short amount of time, mankind truly, truly had gone downhill.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's see what the condition of the world was like before the flood.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus gives us this information from the book of Matthew.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them away.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying until the day that Noah went into the Ark.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds normal, doesn't it?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was business as usual.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But judgment was coming.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Judgment was coming.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was literally breathing down their necks, and they didn't know it.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: People were living their lives apart from God, and their worldview was similar to ours today.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just because people don't believe that judgment is coming or that tribulation is coming, doesn't mean they are off the hook.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just because they think it's not relevant to them does not mean that it's irrelevant.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: People today, perhaps more than ever, pick and choose what is relevant.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutes, even moral absolutes, have a negative connotation today.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: In order for us to understand the true nature of the human condition at Noah's time and at our time, we need to look at a doctrine called the depravity of man.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We can't get into it as much as I would like, but there's a great quote by Chuck Swindahl.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We all suffer from the same disease as did Adam and Eve, Cain and Cain, etc.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have the disease, the same root problem as those who have gone before us.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: The best word for it is depravity.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that root problem yields fruit, sinfulness, sinful thoughts, sinful words, and sinful actions.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is nobody on earth who isn't affected.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: The doctrine of depravity hasn't anything to do with our estimation of ourselves, but with God's estimation of us.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are the heirs of generations of teachings of humanism, which sees humanity in an ever-ascending spiral rising higher and higher from the depths from which we have sprung until finally we are able to reach stellar levels of goodness and greatness.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So widely accepted is this concept that we have come to feel that there is so much good in the worst of us.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Humankind is really not so bad after all.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: When we measure ourselves by others around us, we can always find someone who is lower than we are on the moral or ethical scale.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the comparison gives us a feeling of self-satisfaction and pride.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: But scriptures do not measure us by those around us, they measure us by God who has created us.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: The creature is measured by the Creator and is found wanting.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the words that God uses to describe man in Genesis 6.5.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you as gripped as I am when you read those prominent thoughts in that verse?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the words every, only, all the time.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound like depravity?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or does that sound like ascending greatness?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is depravity.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We start out depraved, and if we do nothing to change our course, we e we end up even more depraved.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: At creation, God saw and he evaluated what he had created, and his estimation of it was that it was good.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now God sees, and his evaluation is not only that it is not good, it is so not good that he is going to wipe the surface of the earth clean.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: After the flood, this is what God says.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: That pretty much sums up the doctrine of depravity.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: We are all born depraved.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are sinners from birth.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve's sin was the original sin.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And their sin was imputed or put on every human being that's ever been born ever since.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that makes us sinners by birth.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have a sin nature that we all struggle and wrestle with, and we choose to sin.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are sinners from birth, we are sinners by nature, and we are sinners by choice.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Chuck Swindah goes on to say, Jesus Christ is the one great exception.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was no grime in him, only glory, no dark side, only light, no sinfulness, only righteousness.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: He is the great goodness.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture says three important things about Jesus.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: He knew no sin, he had no sin, he did no sin.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing no sin, having no sin, and doing no sin, he qualified as the Lamb of God who took away the power of sin, the shame of guilt, and the dread of death.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: When we confess our sins, he cleanses us.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus takes our sin problem off of us, and he is the only one who can.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: The depraved, sinful condition of the earth led to grief.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It led to God's grief.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the Lord said, I will wipe mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth, men and animals and creatures that move along the ground and birds of the air, for I am grieved that I have made them.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: We saw last week that companionship and relationship was God's desire for mankind.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: But now that mankind has turned away from God, his heart is grieved.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sin has, was, and has and continues to be trivialized in our society.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: But God does not trivialize it.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: It matters to God because our sin separates us from Him.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a barrier, just like it did with Adam and Eve.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The enemy who whispered to Adam and Eve is still whispering to us today.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who have no God consciousness, the whispers are easily lost on Satan's rhetoric.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: So easily lost.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Mankind's tendency is to gloss over sin, to deny it, to blame someone else, or to compare ourselves with somebody else.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: But God's heart is as grieved today by the sinful condition that he sees around the world.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: How could a holy God not be grieved by the human sex trafficking going on around the world?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way he's not grieved by the way we treat one another with prejudice.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: How would he not be grieved by watching his servants and follow his followers being murdered and put to death all around the world?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: God was grieved.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: God is still grieved by the condition of the world.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that his grief is mounting faster than ever.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've recently been made more aware by the Holy Spirit just of all the evil that is taking place around the world.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And most of us know very little about it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us know it's going on, but we don't know the degree to which it is going on.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But God sees it all.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: God sees all of it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: He sees all of the sexual assaults, he sees every abortion, God sees all of it.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you and I saw those things, we would be completely ruined.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: We would be completely destroyed by seeing them.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the amazing thing is that even though God sees it, he is not changed by it.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: He sees the worst that is going on all over the world, and it doesn't impact his holiness at all.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't change him.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: He sees it and he remains holy and pure.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when you and I cry out to him for the injustice, for the sin, for the wickedness that that is present here in our world, it moves him to action.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It means something to him.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: When you and I are upset about the sinful condition of our world, even though we may never see action, our cries to him move him to action.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: We will see that clearly as we move along in this Bible study this year.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: God responds to the suffering of his people.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love this statement by Anne Graham Lotz from her book, God's Story.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: She says it perfectly.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: The word grieved is a love word.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't grieve for someone unless you love that person.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: The God who created the heavens and the earth as an environment for man, who was the crowning glory of his creation, the God who brought Adam into existence because he wanted to be known by him.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: The God who personally planted a garden eastward in Eden as a home for the man he had created.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: The God who tenderly gave Adam the desire of his heart when he created woman to be his true companion, the God who supplied all of Adam and Eve's needs over and above what he could have thought to ask for.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: This God was ignored and neglected by Adam's descendants, and his heart was filled with pain.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: God was emotionally involved in the indifference of Noah's world.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: If he is grieved over that world, he is certainly grieved over this one.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Man had increasingly built a world apart from God, and when you live as if there is no God, you are setting yourself up for judgment.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The people of Noah's time would have realized, would not have realized that judgment was coming unless God would have sent someone to tell them that judgment was coming.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Noah was the man for the job.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was God's servant.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 6:8 says, Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: The word favor here in the Hebrew means grace.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: The most popular definition of grace is unmerited favor.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Grace is what God does for depraved human beings like you and me, which we do not deserve, cannot earn, and will never be able to repay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: In our sinful, polluted, helpless depravity with no possibility of cleansing ourselves.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: We cry out for grace and God gives it to us.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Noah found grace in the eyes of God, not because Noah was perfect, but because Noah came to God, God's way.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Look at how Noah's described in chapter 6, verse 9.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: John MacArthur says the order is one of increasing spiritual quality before God.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was righteous, which means he lived by God's righteous standards.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was blameless, and that sets him apart by comparison to those in his day.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he walked with God, and that puts him in a class with Enoch.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Enoch was the seventh descendant from Seth, who walked so righteously that God just took him up to heaven.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of man that Noah is.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Through his servant Noah, God sent a warning to his people.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So God said to Noah, I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So make yourself an ark of cypress wood, make rooms in it, and coat it with pitch inside and out.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you are to build it.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: The ark is to be four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within eighteen inches of the top.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle, and upper decks.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everything on earth will perish.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I will establish my covenant with you and will enter the and you will enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: You are to bring into the ark two of every of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal, and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Noah did everything just as God had commanded him.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, last week we talked about how God gives instructions, but he doesn't always or even often tell us what the consequences might be in the future.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of those really rare times when God gives detailed instructions and he says what the outcome or the consequences are going to be.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: The destruction of the world.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And its purpose was to stay afloat, not for navigational purposes, because God was going to get guide it to where he wanted it to go.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: This design used the space very effectively.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: The arc would have been very stable in the water.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are here in Topeka, the Ark was a little smaller than our College Avenue building where we're recording this right now.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And except that the middle would have been wider.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: But this building that we are in on our campus takes up an entire city block.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: A structure that big would have drawn a lot of attention.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was a preacher of righteousness in a very corrupt and violent society.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder Jesus refers to Noah when he talks about the end times.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Luke 17, 26, Jesus said, just as it was in the days of Noah, so also it will be in the days of the Son of Man.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So get this.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Noah is telling the people that a flood is going to come.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Theologians do not believe, and I agree with them, that it had ever rained on the earth before the flood.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: They thought that there was just a vapor that watered everything, kind of like a terrarium kind of setting.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the people had no concept of the things that he was warning them about.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: They must have thought he was totally crazy.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's declaring, the rain is coming, the rain is coming.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, uh, what's rain?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: They have no concept of what he's telling them.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 7, 11 says, On that day the springs of the deep burst forth and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: When the flood came, when the waters came, the subterranean reservoirs and aquifers break forth, probably because of earthquakes that happen.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a deluge coming from the sky, there's a deluge coming from the ground and from the rivers, which all added to the terror that they are experiencing.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And even though we experience floods now, this was this was our floods are nothing like this.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: This was infinitely worse than what we could even imagine.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when we talk to people about heaven or hell or coming judgment or even a time of tribulation, that's that that seven-year time of tribulation at the end of time, it's kind of the same way.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have, if they don't have that seed of faith, they cannot comprehend at all what we are saying.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure we sound crazy to those who who don't believe and don't understand at all the things that we would be trying to communicate.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we still have to warn them, just like Noah did.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: We still have to warn people, even though they'll probably think we are crazy, just like they did with Noah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: God was so grieved with the condition of the world that he is preparing to destroy the evil in the world.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to do this.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to destroy people and animals and everything.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like this view of God.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is a difficult thing to understand.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And our tendency, listen to me, our tendency is to judge God for judging the world he created.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's our tendency.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to judge God for judging the world in this way.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout this study, we're going to learn a crucially important truth, and that is that it is always, always, too soon to judge God.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: He did judge the world in this way.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: The evidence of a universal flood is undeniable.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Marine fossils have been found atop mountains all around the world.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Colorado, and before I-70 went went up into the mountains, it was a two-lane road.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: That was a long time ago.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a slab on the side of the mountain, and you could see marine fossils in the slab as you drove past it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: There is universal evidence of a worldwide flood that covered the surface of the E of the earth.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: If all we see is God's judgment on the earth in this way, then we miss some really important truths about God's faithfulness, his provision, his protection for those who would come into the ark.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord then said to Noah, Go into the Ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Noah did all the Lord had commanded him to do.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord shut him in.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: How incredibly gracious of God to close the door of the ark.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Noah didn't have to close the door on his his and his wife's extended family and their friends and their neighbors.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: For 2 Peter 2, 4 through 10 says, If God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness and seven others, if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: God gave the people 120 years to hear what Noah was saying, and then seven more days after Noah and his family went into the ark before God shut the door.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is grace.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is grace.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Noah is building this ark for 120 years.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's as big as a city block.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: For 120 years, he's warning people that judgment is coming.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: What tenacity?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Think about this question.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do we learn about God from the provision of the ark?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the time that he gave the people to come into the ark 120 years.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: What does that tell us?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: It tells us that God is patient, that God is long-suffering, that God wanted people to be saved, to come into the ark, but they would not come.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sadly, he knew that they would not come no matter how much time he gave them to respond.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: How sad.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just because a person doesn't see or understand judgment or hell or the tribulation doesn't mean it isn't coming.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just because they deny that there will be judgment doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: It just means they deny it.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Judgment is as certain today for unbelievers as the flood waters were to those in Noah's day.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is coming.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is only a matter of time.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Today, perhaps more than ever before, we see the depravity of mankind.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: I tend to do a lot of research about human trafficking and such, and what I see and understand absolutely sickens me.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously, I can't imagine the days of Noah being any worse than they are right now, and the depravity that we see in the dark places of our world.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: In general, man is just as self-absorbed and independent and sinful and stiff-necked as they were in Noah's time, really, probably more so.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Satan's deception is so prevalent.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: The earth is filled with evil now, but not as much as it will be in the future at the end of times.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's bad now, but it will get worse.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: For those of us who have faith and believe, we need to be like Noah.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be like Noah.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be preachers of righteousness, sharing the truth.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be compelling people to come in to the only door that will save them, which is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: But also like Noah, we need to walk with God righteously and blamelessly in a corrupt generation.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: After the ark is complete, the people would have would have seen an entire walking zoo parade as it's going, all the animals are going into the ark week after week.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as Noah's getting them all settled in, it's hard to believe that the people who would be watching weren't getting a little bit nervous at this point.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know I would have been.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: They watch two of every kind of animal walk into the ark day after day after day.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then after Noah and his family and the animals are all in, God waits seven more days before he shuts the door.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine Noah going out onto that ramp day after day after day, pleading with people and saying, It's still not too late.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Come into the ark, you still have time.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: But none of them took him up on the salvation that the ark represented.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when God closes the door, we see his judgment.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: God keeps his word and he brings judgment.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: He said, the judgment that he said that he would.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that day, all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the flood waters of the heavens were opened.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: On that very day Noah, his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: They had with them every every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to its their kind, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings, pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark, then the Lord shut them in.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased, they lifted the ark high above the earth.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Those in the ark may have heard the terror from those who were perishing.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they took very, very little comfort, no comfort by the fact that they had believed God and had come into the ark.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt that they actually heard it though, because imagine the lightning and the thunder, which these people have never experienced, lightning and thunder and rain and the deluge that they are experiencing.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: The animals would have been making noise, everything would have been creaking, so I doubt that they heard it, but I'm sure that they could picture individuals who they knew that were perishing.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: What a horrible, horrible, horrifying thing this would have been.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he wanted.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: That God gives ample time, that God gives warnings of judgment, and that God's judgment is sure.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: God has told us in his word that he's going to bring tribulation or going to bring judgment again during the tribulation.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's told us it will come and it will, because he told us that it would, because God always keeps his promises.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: But listen to his heart here in Ezekiel 33, 11.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Say to them, As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Turn, turn from your evil ways.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Why will you die, people of Israel?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's God's heart.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Graham Lotts, again in God's story, Hebrew, he says, God in his sovereignty knew that not one more person in the whole world was going to repent and come in.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: So he shut the door.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whom do you know who thinks a loving God would never shut the door and leave him or her to judgment?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: The world of Noah's day would say from hard experience to that person, think again.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because God did shut the door of the ark on a world filled with people and allowed them by their own choice to come under his judgment.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Outside the ark, they were literally, utterly, hopelessly, eternally helpless to withstand it.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: How did God show his grace to these people?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: He gave the instructions to build the vessel of salvation.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: He used his servant Noah to implore them to come in.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: He provided the safety of the ark for all who would come in, who would enter.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And God closed the door on all who did enter.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: He protected those inside the ark.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Judgment is as sure today as it was then.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: But God provides a way of escape from that judgment in Jesus Christ.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: And all who come to Jesus will be saved on that day.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the vessel of salvation for us today, and all who come to him will be safe and will be secure for all eternity.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: After many months, God graciously brings Noah and his family off the ark and he makes the covenant with them.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: This covenant is called the Noahic covenant.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then God said to Noah, Come out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and their wives, bring out every kind of living creature that is with you, so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Noah came out together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: All the animals, all the creatures that move along the ground, and all the birds, everything that moves on the earth, came out of the ark, one kind after another.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offering on it.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said, In his heart, never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood, and never again will I destroy all creatures as I have done.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: As long as the earth endures seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and said by saying to them, Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then God said, I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between the me and the earth.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind in the earth.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you reminded of that everlasting covenant every time you see a rainbow in the sky?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: You should be.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: You should be.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Noahic covenant, and God is proclaiming his faithfulness to that covenant that he made with Noah and His creation, still to this day.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because God always keeps his promises.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: We see some important truths about God.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we he sees everything.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is hidden from our God, nothing.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: The sin and degradation of the entire world is viewed by our God.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: God communicates with his people.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: He spoke to Noah so Noah could speak to others to impact their lives.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God does the same today.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: God is specific when he speaks.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: God hates sin and is grieved by it, and the sin of our world still grieves him today.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when you and I enter into the sorrow of all that sin, over that sin that is going on, we are joining him in a very much like Noah did.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you enter that grief, you're joining him.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very meaningful to him.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then God judges sin.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sin has to be judged.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: He will let people get away with it for a time, and then the hammer of judgment will fall.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's only a matter of time.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: We see that God honors the just man, God protects those who belong to him.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: God gives a lasting sign of his promise, the rainbow.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: God values his creation.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: God gives us time because he is patient, and God is a covenant maker and a covenant keeper.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: The truths that we learn about man are that man is in a depraved state from childhood, that man's obedience to God requires faith.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: It required action on Noah's part to build the ark, and that scoffers will make fun of righteous people and reject their message.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are all sinners who deserve God's judgment.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the only reason that we won't receive his judgment, that final judgment of hell, is because of the grace of God.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: When we make the honest confession, guilty as charged, he says, heard and forgiven.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Heard and forgiven.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: David said it really well in Psalm 51, 1 through 5.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compla compassion.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you are right in your verdict and you are justified when you judge.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: This week take some time to search your heart and see if there's any iniquity.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: See what the transgressions are, and then let him cleanse you from it and set you free from it.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Confess your sin and your depravity, and then let him cleanse you.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: We started out today by looking at the condition of the world before the flood, and I want to look at the condition of the world after the flood.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea, they are given into your hands.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that lives and moves will be food for you, just as I have I gave you the green plants.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now I give you everything, but you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood in it.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for your lifeblood I will demand an accounting.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will demand an accounting from every animal and from each man too.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: For in the image of God has God made man.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: What do we see that's reminiscent of Adam and Eve?
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's when he tells them to subdue the earth and rule over the animal kingdom and to be fruitful and multiply.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: But this time we see something different.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: God gave Noah permission to eat the animals.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: Up to this point, they just survived on the plants that God had provided.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps the condition of the world was different after the flood, and now their bodies needed protein to sustain life.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: God also asserts the sanctity of human life.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: The reason for capital punishment here in verse 6 is that God made us in his image.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: Constable in Sonic Light says, a person extinguishes a revelation of God when he or she murders someone.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is why it is so serious.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Noah, like Abel, had a righteous heart.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: And like Enoch, he walked with God.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was a man who was not influenced by the pool of the world, but he listened to God, got to God's voice instead of man's voice.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even though he was not perfect, God still considered Noah a man of faith, worthy to be included in the chapter of faith, the hall of faith, in Hebrews chapter 11.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Noah obeyed God in the midst of a disobedient society.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if Noah could do it in his, we can do it in ours.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you so much for the things that we learn about you through this story and this narrative of the flood and of Noah.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: God, please work out the depravity, work out the iniquity in us, and work in just a solid foundation of righteousness so that we might impact our culture and impact the people around us the way Noah did.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Help us be people of integrity, God, so that we might effect a change.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the things that we've seen.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we pray all of these things in the mighty name of Jesus.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next time.